One Day Later, Silent Bus Retraces A Route Of Sorrow

Head down and hunched against the morning chill, the slight boy loped around the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Opatrny Drive.

It was still dark when the school bus pulled up about 6:25 a.m. Thursday. A counselor got off the bus, put his arm around the boy's shoulder and helped him aboard.

Along with another adult, they rode to Cary-Grove High School. At each deserted stop, the bus paused and then continued on.

As it retraced the route that ended with Wednesday's horrific accident, day broke on a town awakening to the full measure of its loss.

Before 11 a.m., two more students would die from the injuries they suffered Wednesday when a Metra train rammed into the rear of their bus, bringing the number of dead to seven. Another shudder rippled through the community.

There were many signs of mourning, like the chalk messages from classmates scrawled on the school sidewalk and flowers left near the railroad tracks, but also signs of strength and hope.

One injured boy's friends took up a collection to replace the prized Duke Blue Devils Starter jacket ripped during the frantic efforts to save him. His mother, like a few other parents, watched as he made the first tentative steps toward recovery.

But, as the day wore on, it became clear that it would be many more mornings before the sorrow eased.

About 7 a.m., at the Anfinsen home on Old Hunt Road, the family sat around eating breakfast at the kitchen table. No one had gotten much sleep.

John Anfinsen, who is 14 and a freshman at the high school, had been hurt in the accident.

A bandage covered the nine stitches next to his right eye, and he had jammed his left arm.

Throughout the night, his parents periodically woke him to make sure he hadn't suffered a concussion. And people had visited and called the family late into the night, making sure everyone was OK.

Thursday morning, Karen Anfinsen was going to drive her son to school for the first time. "I'm sure I'll take the bus again, but not real soon," John said. "I'm kind of worried after what happened yesterday."

He doesn't remember much about the accident, just the screams. He doesn't know if he walked off the bus or if someone carried him.

"I told him God was on his side," Karen Anfinsen said. "That we don't know why it happened, why his friends are gone. He seemed to understand."

As the pair prepared to leave, John's father, David, told him to call if he wanted to come home early.

"It's kind of hard to believe it happened," John said. "For a while, I was thinking it was a dream, but it happened. I know it did."

Students went through the motions of a regular school day at Cary-Grove High School.

But the school functioned as more of a refuge than anything else.

Outside, the flag flew at half-staff. Inside, some of the 50 crisis counselors had been assigned to each class where empty chairs marked the deaths. Special "drop-in centers" were set up in the library. About 200 of the school's 1,345 students were absent.

Freshman Melanie Carr, who had gym class with victim Michael Hoffman, spent the day in the library. "There were kids crying in the hallways, in the library and in classes," said Carr, 14. "It was a frightening day."

It got worse after lunch, when news trickled in that Stephanie Fulham, 15, and Susana Guzman, 18, both hospitalized at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, died within an hour of each other that morning.

Teachers read the news aloud in their classes, but some students learned of their deaths through tiny handbills that other students passed out, reading "In loving memory of . . ."

Guzman transferred to Cary-Grove from Elgin Larkin High School for her senior year.

A sophomore, Fulham had a role in the school production of "The Hobbitt," which was scheduled to open Friday. The performance was canceled. She played soccer and swam, and sang in the school choir.

Her younger brother was in critical condition Thursday at Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, according to Lutheran General officials. Good Shepherd refused to release the names of its patients Thursday.

Winterton, who is 15, had a broken leg and underwent surgery Wednesday to remove his spleen, but he was on his way to recovery.

When he awoke Wednesday evening in Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, his mother told him she loved him.

"And I told him he was on TV because I wanted to see if he was thinking straight. And he said, `Did you tape it?' That's when I knew he was all right," she said.

Winterton's friends in the Cary Grove Evangelical Free Church youth group-who recognized him being lifted into a helicopter on television from the Duke University jacket he habitually wore-took up a collection Wednesday night to buy him another, as well as a hat embroidered with his name.